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pumping for friend's baby?

I'm not really sure where to post this. My friend adopted a newborn who is now about 2 months old. At the time, I had considered offering to pump for him, but my DD was at the time 12 mos old and running around, basically not eating solids, and I felt that I might not have enough milk. Now she is eating solids well, nursing less, and very happy with that. I have never pumped. What are the chances that if I started pumping now I would get a significant amount of milk for my friend's baby? How many times per day would I have to pump? How much of a PITA would it be, really? I haven't talked to her about it, but I know she feels bad about her son having to have formula. She made a joke one time about me nursing him, and another day told me that she had just found out that she could have induced lactation, and she seemed to feel kind of bad that she hadn't done so.

Re: pumping for friend's baby?

You will probably be able to get quite a bit of milk out, but it may be slow to start. Do you have a double pumping electric pump? If you could rent a hospital grade pump, that would be even better. The main thing is to be consistent about timing. I would start off pumping once a day, first thing in the morning until you get used to it and then adding more sessions as you want.

Would you like to totally get him off formula? Or just supplement him with your milk? You would need to produce around 24 ounces a day for him to get him completely off of formula. That might be difficult, but I bet you could easily get to 12 ounces or so.

ETA: It's so sweet of you to consider doing this for your friend's little boy

Re: pumping for friend's baby?

I don't have a pump. If we decided to give it a try, I would want my friend to rent a hospital pump initially to try. I think it would be beneficial for him even at less than completely getting off formula, but I'd want there to be more than just a few oz. Thanks for your reply.

Re: pumping for friend's baby?

I think this is incredibly sweet of you. One thing you might want to check into before embarking on this: I know that a lot of the milk banks don't accept milk from women whose babies are older than a year. Not that the milk is "bad" or anything, but we know there are some changes to the milk as babies get older, and we don't necessarily know what they all are. Personally, I think "older baby" milk is probably still better than formula (and likely has more to do with the quantity that is being removed from the breast than the specific age of the baby, as one year olds are also getting solids), but you might want to do a little more research on that first, or check in with a breastfeeding-friendly doctor to make sure.

Re: pumping for friend's baby?

Originally Posted by @llli*manitobamommy

I think this is incredibly sweet of you. One thing you might want to check into before embarking on this: I know that a lot of the milk banks don't accept milk from women whose babies are older than a year. Not that the milk is "bad" or anything, but we know there are some changes to the milk as babies get older, and we don't necessarily know what they all are. Personally, I think "older baby" milk is probably still better than formula (and likely has more to do with the quantity that is being removed from the breast than the specific age of the baby, as one year olds are also getting solids), but you might want to do a little more research on that first, or check in with a breastfeeding-friendly doctor to make sure.

That's interesting about the milk banks. I knew that toddler milk was different from newborn milk, but I didn't really think too much about it. hmm.

Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - Damn it, you've got to be kind. - Kurt Vonnegut

Re: pumping for friend's baby?

I do this for a friend. It is incredibly hard, much harder than I thought it would be. I tend to have OS, and for a while, I could piggyback off that and fed my LO and her LO entirely, but as my LO aged, no matter what I did, my supply would not increase to meet both babies' needs 100% any longer. So I donate what I can to her.

It is also challenging to find the time to pump several times a day to boost my supply while dealing with all my kids.

Now that my LO is over a year, I am going to start tapering down. Toddler milk is different than infant milk as well.

Having BTDT, just do the best you can and regard anything you can offer to your friend as a gift.